Jorge Joestar

Chapter 11: Gremlin

Word reached me that people were seeing strange ‘things’during flights. Other pilots started blaming any airborne mechanical failureson these monsters. They were small, skinny people with no eyes, the storiessaid, so of course I thought of the ‘evil thing’ that Faraday had seen theevening Kenton Motorize died. There were dark pits where his eyes should be.His skin was brown, like any Spanish child. The times and places of thesemonsters sightings were all over the place, and at first the targets seemedindiscriminate, but I changed my thinking as stories of this monster beganfocusing in on me, until the Royal Aero Club’s own Jim Graham came in shouting,

“I saw it! It was clinging to the underside of my plane!Look!”

he added, slapping the side of the plane he’d just landed, aFrench-borne beauty named Simone. It was a Blériot XI monoplane with two wheelsunder the main wing and one under the tail, and the panel between the frontwheels was hanging open. The engine was visible inside that square hole, andtwo or three screws near the cylinder had come loose and fallen out.

“See!? I thought the engine was making a terrible racket,and this is why!”

Jim said, quite beside himself. He explained that he’s seena tiny eyeless creature, maybe 50 centimeters tall, scrabbling about under hisplane, doing something. 50 cm? That was far smaller than I’d imagined.

“Nah, it didn’t look like a Spaniard at all. No way thatthing was human. All its teeth were sharpened, and its claws were long andpointy, and it kept grinning at me like it knew I couldn’t do anything. It keptmessing about down there and then the engine started acting funny and I aboutshit myself. I turned and came straight back here before that thing made mecrash, but it must have dropped off somewhere…”

Jim Graham began carrying a pistol with him whenever heflew, but he never saw the monster again. People began saying the pistol keptit away, and imitating him, but I wasn’t so sure. I wanted to prove it was realbefore I banished it. Prove it was the same

eyeless thing that had shown up at the Motorize Manor. So Istarted bringing a camera into my cockpit. A boxy camera made by Kodak, calledthe Brownie. If anything happened, I would take a snapshot, and if I got aphoto I planned to visit the Motorize Manor again, and get Faraday to verifyit, but before that happened I got a photo of something else. I was trying tophotograph JG Rollins’ stunt flying, and as he turned his Leslie upside-down, Isaw the silhouette of a plane through a gap in the clouds far behind him. WhenI showed the photo around nobody in the club had ever seen anything like it,but I was pretty sure I had. I knew I’d seen it somewhere but I couldn’t quiteremember where until one day the dots finally connected. I’d never seen theplane itself. I’d only seen the schematics for it. When it was just a dream, ascribbling in his notes in the Motorize shed. Yes. It was Steven’s Motorizing.

Steven was supposed to be in France, so why was he flyingclose to the Dover coast? If he’d flown all the way from France this was not apublic flight. This was not an era where just anyone could cross country lineswhenever they liked. Was he flying home from France? But if he was flying backfrom France on a plane of his own design people would be talking about it, andword would have reached us.  To beginwith, I had no idea what Steven was even doing in France. France and Englandhad never really got along but eight years ago they’d signed a trade agreementand travel between the two countries was quite common. I had a lot of pilotfriends in France, but none of them had ever heard of Steven Motorize, and noneof the airplane makers had heard of him, either. It was still a very smallindustry, so if he was openly involved in it I would almost certainly haveheard something about him. So he must not be openly involved, I guess. He wasflying his plane in secret. His own original creation. It cost money to make anairplane, so that

must be coming from the Motorize coffers. Since Darlingtonwas clearly becoming the official heir, she should be aware of what Steven wasup to. With that thought in mind I visited the Motorize home for the first timein five years. After the Kenton Murder case wound up impossible to prosecutefurther, Ben Motorize lost all appetite for business. He’d more or lesswithdrawn from it, and had retired to a resort town in American called Miami.Darlington was running the estate and the business all by herself. She’d becomeeven more beautiful, and even more imposing. When I showed her the photo I’dtaken, she grimaced.

“……so?”

“Tell me what Steven’s doing.”

“…………”

“Don’t tell me this plane isn’t funded with Motorize money.And I highly doubt Motorize money is funding anything you don’t know about.”

“…you’ve really grown a backbone, Jorge Joestar.”

“…thanks?”

I said, certain now that I was right. Darlington was buyingherself time to think. About what she should tell me. Which meant she knewsomething. Ignoring her attempts to deflect, I pushed for an answer.

“I know a lot about planes, and I know this is theMotorizing Steven was designing. The most distinctive aspect is thissingle-seat design. It looks like a two-seater, but it isn’t. He designed itthis way so that he can easily fly back to the cockpit if he has to jump out ofthe plane for any reason. This gives him somewhere to fold his wings. No otherplane would need the like.”

Darlington stared silently at me for a while, but at lastshe said,

“Why today?”

but it sounded like she was talking to herself, and before Icould try to say anything she said something that came as a complete surpriseto me.

“Jorge, do you think it’s possible for the dead to come backto life?”

“Eh…….?”

What? Was she deflecting again? But then…?

“I don’t even need to think about it. It’s not possible.”

I was lying. I knew the truth. Some dead became zombies.

But that wasn’t coming back to life again, that was the deadacting as if they were alive, drinking human blood, and devouring humanflesh.  A shiver ran down my spine. Aflavor of fear I had not felt in some time. I thought I had left all thatbehind me on the Canary Islands. I did my best to keep it from showing.Darlington stared at me intently for another minute, then said,

“…yes, but not everyone thinks that way, and there arecultural and religious precedents.”

Jesus Christ resurrected three days after being crucified.People all across the world believed that was true.

“………? What do you mean by this? Does Steven believe thisis possible?”

“I don’t know. But my father and Steven are betting on thatpossibility. They want Kenton back.”

“………! What…!? But how…?”

“….while you were studying planes, Steven and my father havebeen studying ways to bring back the dead. And they found a place in SouthAmerica that had stories about it, and found some sort of proof that someritual had actually given life to the dead.”

“They did…?”

“A folk religion called Vodou. They have a kind of sorcerercalled a Bokor, who is set to chant a spell that causes the dead to rise totheir feet. Though still dead, they stand. They call these undead zombies.”

Zombies!? This was starting to sound a lot like what Straitshad told me.

“It was slaves that brought Vodou to America originally,”

Darlington continued.

“It seems to have started as a religion on the Africancontinent, but South America is a strange land, and parts of the continent havetheir own legends of the dead coming back. The Aztecs believed that the deadwould become their king. Jorge, have you heard of the stone mask?”

This caught me off guard, and I stuttered,

“Wh-what? The

stone mask? What stone mask?”

“A tool used to turn the Aztec King into the living dead.We’ve learned that your father, Jonathan Joestar, spent quite some timestudying the mask. It was a long time ago now, but my father once visited yourhome, and remembers seeing the mask hanging on the wall in the parlor.”

I couldn’t keep feigning innocence. I stopped protesting,and simply waited to see where Darlington’s story would take us. She pressed ontowards the heart of the matter.

“That parlor burned with the rest of the Joestar mansion inthe great fire twenty-four years ago…but do you know what happened in thathouse the night of the fire?”

Darlington did not wait for me to answer.

“Your grandfather, also named George Joestar, gathered abunch of policemen to arrest his adopted son, Dio Brando, who was trying tomurder him. They all died. But they weren’t burned to death. Not one personthere died in the fire. All the policemen were murdered before the fire began,in the most horrible, horrific manner possible. We’ve obtained a copy of thepolice report describing the condition of the bodies. Their arms and legs weretorn off, their heads split in half. One of the policemen had two holes in hishead. As if… two fingers had punctured his skull.”

……….! Darlington may not have noticed, but even I didn’tknow the story in that much detail. All I knew was that Dio Brando had put themask on, murdered my grandfather, and when blood hit the mask he’d turned into avampire and slaughtered the cops.

“Part of the Joestar mansion that survived the fire hadsimilar round holes on the ceiling, and on the wall two rows of parallel holeslike someone had walked straight up the wall, smashing their feet through itwith every step. That night, twentyfour years ago, something was in the Joestarmansion, something with unnatural power. And we know that the Aztec kings hadsimilarly inhuman power. The stone mask links Aztec legends and the Joestarmansion, and ties both to a third place. A town in a valley known as WindKnight’s Lot.”

By this point I couldn’t help but be impressed. She’d doneher homework well.

“That town was wiped out in a single night. The onlysurvivors were a young girl and her brother. It seems someone swore them tosecrecy. There should have been bodies everywhere, but they were all taken awayby some powerful group. Steven and my father managed to get those two survivorsto tell everything. They tried money at first, but apparently using DioBrando’s name and showing them a photograph of him was far more effective. Thesister told them the truth. Dio Brando came to that town and turned everyonethere into the living dead.”

Darlington had stepped right into the heart of the matter,and she kept on walking.

“And then their gaze turned towards the ship that sank whileyou parents were on their honeymoon. They investigated. They wanted to find theship’s wreck, but couldn’t find it anywhere, so all they could do was check therecords from the port it left from. They found one suspicious piece of cargo. Alarge box…and the owner’s name was listed only as ‘DB’. One of the dockworkers who helped carry the box on board told them it was a big, sturdy blackbox that looked like a coffin. And another dock worker gave them an even moresinister statement – he said he’d heard a voice from inside it. Jorge, we knowthat when your mother was rescued by Canary Island fisherman in the AtlanticOcean, she was afloat on a large box that looked very like a coffin. And Jorge,I’m sure you know how Steven and your father came by that statement.”

“………….”

“They went to La Palma in the Canary Islands, and learnedmore than the history of your family. They found that 73 people had died in theisland church in 1905. And that evening, a mysterious group had declared curfewon the island…essentially declaring martial law. Steven and fatherinvestigated further, and found the same group had come to the island fiveyears earlier, and done the same thing, doing something so terrifying theislanders refuse to

speak of it at all. Jorge, I’m sure you remember this. Theincident with the Torres family. Alejandro Torres came to your school, lookingyoung again, walking on the ceiling, with large fangs sticking out of hismouth. And the ones who defeated this monster were you and the girl who’d beenliving with you – Lady Elizabeth Straits. Five years later, on the second nightof horror, she worked with that mysterious group, and left the Joestar home forgood. After that we were unable to trace her movements, but she was always withyou when you needed her. Any time you were in trouble, she would come. Right?She even stayed in the Westwood jail with you.”

I really didn’t expect her to know that.

“How…?”

“I’m the one who tracked that lead down. Had to use a photoof Elizabeth Straits in grade school. Even as a kid she was a beauty, verymature looking. When I showed it to the police officers, they all acted likethey’d been struck by lightning. Their eyes went blank, and they passed out.She left them seriously damaged. I have no idea what she could have done toknock out all those men, but several of them definitely remembered seeingElizabeth Straits, seeing her walking freely in and out of the jail. The policeofficers themselves had no idea how or why she was able to do that, but I thinkyou know, Jorge. It’s obvious she was only there because you were.”

She saw through everything. Embarrassment threatened to turnmy face red, but I desperately tried to keep my poker face going.

“I understand now why you never showed interest in othergirls, Jorge,”

Darlington said.

“A girl that impressive already had you locked up. Yourfeelings, your heart, your very body – she’s got them all tamed. She’s trainedyou so well you’d never even consider cheating on her.”

“Eh…?”

She has? The look on my face must have been a sight, becauseDarlington burst out laughing.

“Ah ha ha ha ha! Sorry, sorry. I just couldn’t resist. No, Ithink the truth is, very few girls can live up to

someone so beautiful and…and amazing.”

“Oh…”

Wait, what were we talking about?

“My point is,”

Darlington said, getting back on track.

“My father and brother are so desperate to bring my sisterback to life that they’ve gone a bit too far. The Aztec legends, the stonemask, the incident at the Joestar mansion, and Elizabeth Straits herself haveall led them to finding the group she works with. Today. I just received wordfrom Steven. Steven thinks I agree with what they’re doing. But I don’t. Imean…she was my sister, and it was a great tragedy, but dead is dead.Steven’s crime won’t vanish if he brings her back, and now that she’sdead…even if Kenton comes back to life there’s no guarantee she’ll be thesame Kenton we once knew. Especially given the Aztec legends and everythingthat happened with Dio Brando, which suggest that all this will lead to nothingbut sadness and horror.”

It would. Lisa Lisa and the rest of them were fighting everyday to prevent that.

“What Steven’s trying to do,”

I said,

“Will almost certainly not pay for his sins, or honorKenton’s memory.”

I remembered what my mother had said seven years ago, on LaPalma. You should stay, too. This story concerns not just the Joestar family,but all mankind. Wind Knight’s Lot may be a small country town, but even thenthe reason almost everyone had been turned into a zombie in a single night wasbecause once a zombie drank your blood or ate your flesh you turned into azombie, too. And that infection spread with terrifying speed. That was thereason the Hamon masters had ordered the villagers not to leave their homeswhen the Antonio Torres incident was going down on La Palma.

“Tell me, Jorge. What should I do? My family have lost theirminds, and I can’t stop them. I hate to say it, but most of the Motorizefortune is under their control, and I can’t stop them using it how theyplease.”

“…I’ll start by contacting Lisa Lisa…ElizabethStraits. I’ll warn her about what’s going on here. And I’ll ask her to takecare of your father and Steven gently. Don’t worry, Darlington. How can I putthis…the group Elizabeth Straits is with is made up entirely of amazingpeople, and they’re all people you can trust. I’m sure they’ll be able to helpyour father and Steven see reason.”

“Really? Are you sure, Jorge? They won’t let Kenton turninto a zombie?”

“I’m sure.”

Even if she did turn into a zombie, Lisa Lisa would destroyher in the blink of an eye.

“You don’t need to be scared of anything like that.”

A shudder ran over Darlington, and she burst into tears.

“Thank god! I was so scared. I can’t tell you how much!”

I considered putting my arms around her suddenlyfraillooking shoulders, but decided against it, striking a cheerful tone.

“Ha ha ha, what a coincidence I happened to take a pictureof Steven’s plane and stop by just in time!”

Why today? Darlington had said, but wasn’t it a good thingI’d come today?

“That’s not what I meant,”

Darlington said, but before she could say anything else acar pulled up out front, and when she saw it she hastily wiped her tears. Atall man got out of the car, greeted Faraday, and strode into the house as ifhe owned the place, calling out,

“I’m home, Dar!”

Home? Dar? I thought only Steven and Kenton called her that.

“Let me introduce you, Jorge,”

Darlington said, smiling, and rising to greet the man comingdown the hall and making his leather boots squeak loudly on the hardwood floor.

“Oh, Dar! I went to put a bouquet on the cliff tops, say aprayer, and let your mother know our good news!”

he said as he stepped in. He was a rather handsome man, of asignificantly more impressive build than my own, and I was instantly in a badmood. Was this because I’d already guessed who he must be?

“Oh, we have company? I do apologize,”

he said with a pleasant smile I found infuriating.

“William, this is Jorge Joestar,”

Darlington said.

“Jorge, this is my fiancé, William Cardinal.”

Cardinal’s eyes went wide, then he smiled broadly and heldout his hand.

“Ohhh, you’re Mr. Jorge Joestar! Well met, sir. What bringsyou here today?”

I had nothing to say to him.

“I heard of your engagement, and came to congratulate youboth. Congratulations.”

I said, and shook his big, thick hand.

“Oh? Well, thank you very much.”

With the handshake complete, neither one of us said anotherword. We both knew already we had nothing to say to each other.

“……….”

“……….”

“Um, Jorge, thank you very much for coming,”

Darlington said, breaking the silence.

“I’ll see you to the door.”

“Oh, mm.”

Darlington went out in the hall, and Cardinal came with us,apparently not needing an invitation.

“Jorge, you’ll come to our wedding, won’t you?”

Hunh?

“…sorry, but I think I’d better not. Given my…historywith this family, I doubt I’d be very welcome.”

“True enough!”

Cardinal chuckled. I cringed, but whatever. I greetedFaraday at the door, and as I stepped outside Cardinal said,

“Since you said it first…you do tend to be a badinfluence, here. Could I ask that you not ever visit here again? We’ve gotenough work today rebuilding the Motorize name, and as grateful as Dar is foryour friendship, from this point on we’ve got to do this as a couple, you see.”

I turned around and looked at Darlington, but she wouldn’tmeet my eye. All the power I’d felt from her when I’d arrived had vanished intothin air, and she was dithering like someone else entirely. Cardinal put hishand on her shoulders, and said,

“Right,

Dar? What’s wrong? You seem out of it. Are you tired? Get ittogether.”

Then Darlington said,

“Oh, heh heh heh, sorry,”

and smiled and got ‘it’ together.

“Thank you for everything, Jorge. Both our houses have seentoo much tragedy, but personally you still have my trust. Goodbye, JorgeJoestar. Give my best wishes to your family.”

Her words sounded like the heir to the house, but thestrength had left her eyes. But I said nothing. It was her family, and herlife. I gave a quick wave, and left the Motorize manor. I went home, calledmother at work, and had her contact Lisa Lisa. About ten minutes later thephone rang. Lisa Lisa wouldn’t tell me where she was, but I told her whatDarlington had told me.

“I don’t know anything about this man Cardinal, but we’realready watching the Motorize men. It’ll be fine. Frankly, the fact that he hashis own airplane design might come in handy.”

Hunh…

“Jorge, it’s still a ways off, but war is coming.”

“Yeah. The RAC has been working with the Navy, and soonenough they’ll officially be the Navy’s airborne division.”

“…don’t die, OK?”

“I won’t,”

I said.

“Planes won’t be used for anything but scouting, anyway, andhow exactly are they going to knock us out of the sky? Only way we’ll crash issloppy maintenance.”

Shortly after that the English Royal Flying Corps wasofficially created, and I joined the Royal Naval Air Service. While learninghow to fly a hydroplane I took part in training on how to take off and landfrom the deck of a new type of warship, which I thought went pretty well. OnceI put my hands on the flight stick I stopped thinking about anythingcomplicated or difficult, and focused. Being dumb was a great help. But whileplenty of guys

could take off and land on a ship at harbor the only pilotswho could do that from the deck of an aircraft carrier sailing across the oceanwere me and Jim Graham, so I was just thinking that aircraft carriers weren’tgoing to be all that useful when the world went to war. The heir to theAustro-Hungarian Empire’s throne was killed by a Serbian, and they declared waragainst Serbia. Germany and Austria had joined the Triple Alliance, and whiledealing with Serbia also invaded Belgium intent on swiftly taking down France,but since they’d suddenly attacked a neutral country England also joined thewar, and since Russia mobilized far faster than expected Germany demanded thatAustria deal with the Russian assault and Austria plunged into chaos. The thirdmember of the Triple Alliance, Italy, initially ignored Austria’s territorialdispute before eventually joining England and France. At the same time theOttoman Empire, itself locked in a territorial dispute with Russia, threw inwith Germany and Austria, and since Japan and England had signed a treaty,Japan joined the war, and the British Empire’s territories Canada, Australia,and New Zealand all pitched in and quite literally all the world was now mixedup in this war. So I fought, too. The main duty of the Royal Naval Air Servicewas finding enemy ships and submarines, and at first we flew hydroplanes inpairs watching the English Channel, but since Jim and I could take off and landon an aircraft carrier we got moved to the great wide open North Sea. For thefirst two weeks I was partnered with a navigator named Frank Demarast, but hekept muttering,

“It’s your fault I’m out here risking my life,”

over my shoulder the whole time we flew and eventually itgot to me and I punched him the moment we landed and fired his ass. Frankseemed grateful, though. Certainly there were a hell of a lot more enemy ships.But finding them saved a lot of English lives. The ship’s guns almost neverhit, and compared to the trench warfare the army was bogged

down in we got to be up in the sky and free and enjoyourselves so what the hell was so damn scary, I thought, but fine, he wasscared, and I couldn’t be bothered getting another navigator so I startedflying alone and doing some pretty crazy shit. I piled bombs in Frank’s empty seat, and used them to bombard Germanships from the air. I knew they were actively developing proper bombingequipment, but until that reached me I wanted to do what I could. Unless youdid something really stupid planes weren’t about to get hit by any ships, andfrom the sky battleships looked super unprotected. So I tried tossing bombs outof the plane as I flew over them and like I expected, they hit and I wasofficially getting results. I was pleased. It was much better to have me blowthem up than having English ships fight them head on with lots of casualties.Jim disagreed.

“We should just do what we’re told to do. If we fly rightover a battleship we’re much more likely to get shot down, and there’s no gloryin death.”

Hmmm…that way of thinking was kinda shitty consideringwe’d already earned a relatively safe job flying planes. I said as much and Jimand I had the fight we’d never quite got around to before the war started. Imean Jim didn’t say that shit lightly, and only felt comfortable speaking hismind on the matter because it was me he was talking to, but it still feltcowardly to think like that considering all the other English soldiers outfighting for England right now. If we weren’t motivated to protect people we’dnever make it through this war, I thought. I felt pretty smug about it, but a singlebullet ended that. Bang. I was flying Star Shooter – a hydroplane I’d made afew modifications to, and there was now a hole open in the right side of it. Istared at it, confused. How had I been shot from the side? Had Jim finallysnapped and turned that pistol of his on me? I looked to my right, and saw aGerman Albatros headed right towards me, and the machine gun barrels on bothsides of the body

spit fire again. Bratatatata! They hit. Not me, but Jim’sSimone hydroplane; he’d been just above me on my left, saw the Albatrosattacking before I did, and tried to gain some distance. His wings had gonediagonal, and the hail of bullets licked the length of them. The body broke inhalf before the wings broke up, cracking like an egg and dropping Jim like ayolk towards the ocean below, so I quickly ducked Star Shooter under him andcaught him in midair. When he fell on the pile of bombs behind me I gulped asecond but they didn’t blow up and I didn’t have time to worry about it anyway.I had to dodge the wreckage of Simone as it fell all around me, and for amoment I caught the eye of Jim’s navigator, Peter Fraiser, as he and the rearseat fell with the tail. Peter was trying to stand up out of his seat like heplanned to jump over to my plane and I wanted to catch him but I had to moveaway from him to avoid the remains of Simone’s wings and we both knew Iwouldn’t make it in time even if I tried to come back for him.

“Jorge, he’s coming back!”

Jim roared behind me, so I made a sharp turn, found theAlbatros coming at us, and yanked my stick to avoid the gunfire. The Albatrosturned and followed close on my tail, so I rocked the plane left and right,making it hard to get a bead on us…as a feint, but the moment the Albatrosstarted getting comfortable with our speed I suddenly shot upwards. I kept thatnose up as the sky flipped up side down and we were flying upside down.

“Augghhhhh!”

Jim yelled behind me. The bombs in the back seat went flyingout, bouncing off Jim as he tried desperately not to fall out. I’d never eventried to fly upside-down, and even though I pulled it off the Albatros calmlymade a sharp turn and parked itself on our tail as I righted us so I told Jimto throw a bomb at it.

“I’ll never hit it!”

Jim shouted.

“Just throw them! They don’t have to hit!”

I yelled back, and brandished my pistol.

“Arghhh,”

Jim yelled, not following my drift at all. He threw a bomb,and I shot at it. Bang! Bang! Bang! The bomb exploded in the air with atremendous boooom

right next to the Albatros, and the blast and fire knockedit sideways, and must have burned the pilot badly, since the plane dropped awaywithout correcting course.

“Jesus…can you do that again?”

Jim asked. Because there were two more Albatros planescoming towards us.

“Nope! Let’s run for it.”

We had to get this information to our forces. But theseAlbatros fighter planes not only had the machine guns timed to the propellersso they could fire through them without hitting, they were also much fasterthan the old models, and they caught us in no time. I couldn’t dodge thevolleys fast enough and they blew off my tail wing.

“Fuckers!”

Jim yelled, and this time threw a bomb and tried to shoot itwith his own pistol, but before he could pull the trigger the enemy bullets hitit and booooom the two Albatros planes shot straight into the blast radius,came out on fire, and in the ensuing panic tapped wings, lost their balance,crashed into each other again, got stuck together, and fell away, stillentangled. We watched this in silence, then both broke up laughing.

“…ha ha ha!”

“That was lucky!”

I turned around and shook hands with Jim, then stared at thetail of Star Shooter, with its missing wings. Jim followed my gaze.

“Well,”

I said.

“Emergency landing it is.”

Jim shrugged.

“In the middle of the North Sea? Guess that’s better thanwhat Peter got.”

“…sorry about Peter.”

“Heh. Nobody could have saved him. I should be thanking you.Seriously, man. I owe you one.”

“If your plane hadn’t split open so perfectly I could neverhave done it, and even then I just happened to be in exactly the right place.”

“Yeah…”

Jim was starting to shake. I turned back around, facingforward. So, I thought. How close to our forces would I be able to get?

Not at all close, I decided instantly. That first shot fromthe side had scratched the fuel tank, and the fuel gauge showed we were out ofpetrol…and no sooner did I notice than we ran out completely, and the enginessputtered, and the propellers stopped. We were still 800 meters up. We were infor a long fall.

“It’ll be fine! I’ll land this thing on the water, noproblem!”

I shouted.

“I’m getting rid of these bombs,”

Jim yelled, and started throwing them overboard. One afteranother they vanished into the low-lying clouds around us. Everything around uswas white. Except… Between the silhouettes of the unmoving propeller bladeswas a tiny face. A face with no eyes. It was grinning at me, its mouth filledwith fangs. There was petrol running down its chin like drool. We hadn’t runout of fuel. He’d sucked it all out. The little monster gargled the petrol,cackling,

“Hey, Jorge Joestar…I’m afraid you’re gonna die here. Andafter you’re dead, I’m gonna kill your family, too. Their deaths will be evenworse than yours.”

Kee hee hee hee hee hee! The laugh was so shrill it made Jimsqueal behind me. He could see it, too. See the monster that knew my name. Ithad brown skin, unruly brown hair, and the way it was grinning at me…I knewhim, I thought. Who was he? I grabbed the camera I kept in my seat, and pressedthe shutter. Snap!

A moment later, we were out of the clouds, could see aroundus, and the face between the propellers was gone. Neither of us said a word atfirst.

“Uh, Jim…you saw that, right?”

I asked, still peering through the viewfinder at thepropellers. He didn’t answer.

“Hey!

Did you see it?”

I asked, turning around. Jim Graham’s mouth was wide open,his eyes rolled back, and he was clawing at his throat with both hands.

“….kk….gah…mm………..gahhh!”

He was forcing fragments of sound out, but there wassomething stuffed inside his throat, preventing him from talking. What!? Was hehaving a seizure!?

“Jim! What’s going on!? Hey!”

I shouted. Jim’s eyes locked on to mine and for a second Ihad hope, and then he shoved his own hand all the way into his mouth, shoved iteven farther back, grabbed something and yanked it out…his own tongue. Jimseemed too far gone to know that, and kept pulling with all his strength,stretching his tongue until he’d pulled it a good 30 centimeters out of hismouth. It was no longer just his tongue; he was now pulling out flesh thatbelonged inside his throat. But Jim wouldn’t stop pulling it.

“Hey…Jim! Stop! What are you doing!? Stop!!”

What the fuck!? What was he doing!? I was starting to panic,but Jim didn’t give a shit, he just grabbed the mess of flesh with both handsand pulled even harder, and everything inside came out like potatoes from theground. One hand kept pulling while the other was squeezing everything thatcame out, and then I noticed that he’d even managed to pull out part of his ownribs, and I nearly threw up. Jim’s eyes had rolled back in his head again, butthere was blood coming out his eyelids and his ears and his nose and he lookedtotally dead except his hands wouldn’t stop moving. When his stomach and smallintestines tried to follow his esophagus out they caught on his jaw, but hetried to force them out anyway, and he pulled so hard his stomach ripped inhalf and his hands snapped forward flinging blood and bits of organs in mydirection. I turned quickly away but they spattered across the back of my headand dripped down my neck and this was so unbelievably gross I couldn’t stand itany more and puked all over my cockpit. Bleergh. Bleeeeeeeeeeeergghhhhh! Tearsrunning down my face, I threw up every last thing in

my stomach. Behind me, Jim’s hands were still moving. He wasnow alternating hands, ripping out pieces of the organs jammed in his mouth,tossing them out into the air. My plane was about to crash, and what washappening behind me was so horrific I could barely think straight. For amoment, I wondered if Jim and I should just plunge straight town into the oceanto our deaths, but I thought better of it.

Fuck dying here.

My mind cleared. Even since the war started there’d been apart of me that was OK dying in combat, that accepted the notion that there washonor in a death like that, but that was bullshit. Maybe there were placeswhere it was worth dying, but this wasn’t fucking one of them. I stoppedwatching Jim throw his insides out into the ocean. This was no time to let mymind be clouded by that madness. I faced forward, fixed my eyes on the rapidlyapproaching ocean surface, and kept them there. Splat, slurp, schluuunk! Mixedinto the constant sound of flesh being dragged out of him, I could heard avoice whispering,

“Jorge…Jorge, Jorge, Jorge…help…help me…”

Wait. Wait for now. The Star Shooter’s about to hit theocean! At the last second, I lifted the nose of the Star Shooter, touching thewing-less tail to the water’s surface. Gently, softly, quietly. The StarShooter ran across the water’s surface, water spraying behind it, and Igradually let the weight of the plane settle on the water until the floats oneither side had touched down. If the sea had been flat like a mirror, it wouldhave been an absolutely beautiful landing, but the waves rocked me, wham,thunk, and each blow forced me to yank my stick up and down, trying to softenthe blows. In time, we slowed down, and finally came to a stop.

I’d touched down successfully. I took a deep breath, let itout, and then turned to see why Jim had gone silent. He was curled up in theround seat, not moving at all. There was blood all over the floor and seat andthe plane around it. Bits of flesh were stuck here and there, clinging to thewalls and sliding down the instrument panel. I stood up, reached over, and putmy fingers to Jim’s throat, checking for a pulse. There was none. He wasn’tbreathing, either. He was dead. Staring at the body of my friend, I sat down onthe armored plate in front of the cockpit, wondering just what in the hell Icould do next. I should have been celebrating the landing with Jim, but now Iwas all alone. The surface of the North Sea was dark, the sky was blue, theclouds high above, the breeze crisp but gentle. My second time adrift, Ithought, but no, that wasn’t quite right, the first time I hadn’t even beenborn yet. Perhaps I’d listened to mother’s story a little too intently. It musthave been very hard for her to deal with vampire Dio while holding baby LisaLisa and hiding my father’s head, but here I was bobbing all alone. Which of ushad it worse? There was no comparing our experiences, and no point in comparingthem. Mother survived her experience…then I started wondering why it had evenoccurred to me to try comparing out experiences, and I realized it was becauseI was confident that I would survive mine, too. Why did I think that? Therecould only be one answer. Lisa Lisa. I had her. I waited confidently for LisaLisa to get here, soaking in the sun. That made me sleepy, so I went to sleep.The sound of an airplane engine woke me. Vrrooooooooom…the sound of thepropellers woke me, but I didn’t open my eyes. She’d come, I knew, and thesatisfaction of finding out that I’d been right about came as a mild surprise,but got ignored because I’d been listening to engine sounds a while now andknew what they all sounded like but this engine wasn’t one I’d

ever heard before. If it wasn’t English or French did thatmean it was German? An enemy? I opened my eyes and looked up to see ahydroplane coming towards me of a unique shape I knew at once. I’d seen thedesigns for it pinned to the wall in his workshed. This was the Motorizing, theplane Steven Motorize designed. It looked like a two-seater and was actually asingle-seater but there were two people aboard and the one in back was clearlyLisa Lisa. And the other…? 436 We’re already watching the Motorize men. It’llbe fine. Frankly, the fact that he has his own airplane design might come in handy,Lisa Lisa had said. I found my fists curling up, my body tense. As Motorizinggot low enough, Lisa Lisa clearly couldn’t wait any more, and leaned out of herseat…no, wait, she straight up climbed out of it holding onto the side of theplane with only one hand and foot, the end of her dress flapping in the windfor a second before she jumped off about five meters over the water.

“Eeek!”

My heart leaped to my throat but she splashed downcalmly…without much splash at all. She just slid along the surface of thewater, kicking up spray as she killed her momentum, then stood up and camerunning across the water like an ice skater. Directly towards me.

“Jorge! Are you alright!?”

As I gaped at her, vroooooooommm the Motorizing turned overmy head, as if hesitant about landing. I looked up. The man in the cockpitlifted his goggles, and met my gaze. I couldn’t read his expression, but it wasSteven. Ten years older. He’d lost a little weight and there was a harshnessaround his eyes, but he was the same dude I’d been so into planes with. Stevenand I just looked at each other, making no attempt at greeting. We just madesure the other was alive, that we could each see the other, and that we’d beable speak to each other again. Steven lowered his goggles, and the Motorizebegan slowly descending, and touched down. How I felt as I watched this I stilldon’t really know. Was I mad at him for framing me for Kenton’s

murder, sad because he’d betrayed me, or honestly glad tosee him again? And when I looked at Steven and instantly thought that he wasinnocent after all…was that just because I wanted him to be? Since meetingJohn Moore-Brabazon and getting into cars and airplanes I’d had fun with a lotof different people but even now I still tended to latch onto friends, whichmeant I might still be fixated on Steven.

“Jorge! You aren’t hurt, are you? Thank god!”

Lisa Lisa said, throwing her arms around me, tears in hereyes. He’d brought her to me, he’d brought Lisa Lisa to me, so did that mean Icould trust him?

“Lisa Lisa,”

I said.

“How’d you know where I was?”

“Um, there’s a Hamon master named Tom Petty. He can useHamon to predict what will happen in the future.”

“Oh…he can see the future? He’s always right?”

“…as far as I know.”

“So why’d he do that for me?”

“Heh heh. It wasn’t free, you know. There’s something we’llneed you to do. But first, you want to talk to Steven, right?”

“……..”

Did I? I was a little scared. It felt more like I sort ofhad to talk to him now that he was here.

“I’m sorry I just brought him like this,”

Lisa Lisa said, as if reading my mind.

“But this morning Tom Petty suddenly told me he’d predictedyou’d crash, and the only pilot I could get to fly me to a battlefield rightaway was Steven.”

That meant Steven and Lisa Lisa had been close by thismorning.

“You seem close. What are you and Steven up to?”

“I’m sure Steven will tell you. …Jorge, I know it’s been awhile, but you’re still the only man for me.”

And with that, Lisa Lisa kissed me on the cheek, a gentlekiss without any Hamon, and it occurred to me we hadn’t kissed on the lipssince that temple underground in Rome and maybe it was time we started beingmore grown-up…and then I got really carried away but part of me was alsogoing eh? With Lisa Lisa? Really?

But this was no time to get lost in that mess again. Thesound of those propellers was slowing down as Steven taxied the Motorizing overto us. What should I say? Was it even my job to speak first here? Steven wasthe one who’d killed Kenton and framed me for it and gone into hiding. In theend, he spoke first.

“Been a while, Jorge. Sorry I couldn’t get in touch withyou. After you got arrested I started chasing the real killer, trying to proveyou were innocent. Then three years later I was a suspect, and the police werelooking for me, so I couldn’t go back to England. …my father also suggestedthat if I were arrested, they’d force a guilty verdict so they could secretlyhand me over to the military and do experiments on me. But let me make onething absolutely clear here, Jorge. I did not kill Kenton. She was killed by aSpanish-speaking midget with no eyes.”

I had no idea what to say. He kept talking.

“Kenton had been telling me about him for months before hekilled her. She said when she flew while the clouds were dark or it wasraining, a monster would show up. She said it would laugh at her, say thingsthat she thought might be in Spanish, and do things to her or the plane. But Inever caught a glimpse of it, no matter how closely I watched. She swore it hadshown up right in front of me. The cloth on the glider tore, screws or nuts onthe wings came loose, sometimes there were even scratches on her body, and itwas obvious that something was going on while she was flying. But neither of ustook it all that seriously. I think these wings of mine made us used to weirdshit like that.”

Weird shit? Jesus, what this thing had done went way beyondweird shit.

I remembered trying to repair Motorizing 5 after pullingthat out of the water at the bottom of those cliffs. I’d found two sets of fourclaw marks. The day before Kenton died. I’d totally forgotten about that.

Steven went on.

“But one day Kenton picked the words

“Horhe Joestar”

out of the monster’s Spanish muttering. She thought thatmust mean you, Jorge. She didn’t know much Spanish but she could tell what themonster was saying was insulting, maybe even a curse of some kind. And as yourfriend, Kenton wouldn’t stand for that. She got mad, and yelled at it, and itturned its empty eyes on her and said, ‘You’re going to die,’ in English, andthen it vanished. That didn’t scare Kenton at all. She just got mad, andworried about you. She insisted we had to tell you about this the next time wesaw you, warn you a weird monster was taking your name in vain and up tosomething evil. It was raining the next day, and she was called to the cliffsby someone using your name, but you weren’t there, and she was murdered. Andyou were framed for it. Jorge, when I got to the cliffs it was standing overKenton with a knife it its hand. I saw it vanish over the edge of thecliff.”

A child with no eyes that spoke Spanish. The thing Faradayhad seen that day in the Motorize Manor was what had killed Kenton…? It hadcursed my name? It had framed me for the murder? Hey, Jorge Joestar…I’m afraidyou’re gonna die here. And after you’re dead, I’m gonna kill your family, too.Their deaths will be even worse than yours. So I wasn’t imagining that?

“So…what’s this about you trying to bring Kenton back tolife?”

Steven nodded as if expecting the question.

“Dar told you?

Yeah, truth is, we were looking into the possibility. Butthen Lisa Lisa came along, and I saw a real zombie…and knew it would be anunforgivable sin to make Kenton into one of those horrible things.”

So we all climbed into Steven’s Motorizing and headed forFrance. We had to leave Star Shooter behind, and look for a chance to file areport about it and Jim’s body. Steven flew the plane, and I sat behind himwith Lisa Lisa on my lap, my arms around her. Her face was bright red, and minefelt like it was on fire. Lisa Lisa and I kept talking, only partly to distractourselves. I told her all about the rumors of the eyeless midget that had beenrunning around the English Air Service. Lisa Lisa and Steven both thought longand hard about this. At length Steven asked,

“Did it say anything about you?”

“Nobody ever said anything like that. Very few people evenmentioned it speaking Spanish. It always just shows up out of nowhere whilethey’re flying, breaks something, and then vanishes. Sometimes it speaksSpanish, sometimes it doesn’t; the height varies from gnome-like 50 centimetersto the normal child-sized one I saw. And lately the descriptions of it vary aswell. Some say it looks like a lizard with giant ears, others say it has hornsgrowing out of its head; the only common ground is that it always has dark pitswhere its eyes should be.”

“…the descriptions vary lately? Hmm. How many stories inall?”

Lisa Lisa asked.

“I couldn’t even begin to count. Some days it appears inmultiple places. Some people have started calling them gremlins. No idea wherethat name came from.”

“In that case, there has to be more than one gremlin.”

“Undoubtedly. I don’t know what’s going on with the Frenchpilots or other countries, but the English are flying planes over the channeland over the North Sea, and there are witnesses from all sectors.”

“Right…and these reports started happening all atonce, all over the place? Or did it seem like they started in one place andspread out?”

“Uh…now that you mention it, I’m not sure. I first heardabout it from someone who’d been sent from the Royal Aero Club to train withthe Navy.”

“But that was after 1910, right?”

Steven asked.

“Kenton saw it back in 1905. These things have been in theskies over Westwood for years.”

“When did you start flying?”

Lisa Lisa asked.

“1903.”

“Did you see it then?”

“No…it think it was around March in 1905….that’s thefirst time Kenton started talking about them, anyway. March, yeah.”

“Jorge, you moved to England from the Canary Islands inFebruary 1905,”

Lisa Lisa said, pointedly.

“………..!?”

The implication there left Steven speechless, so I said,

“And in October of that year, the evening Kenton was killed,he was in the Motorize Manor.”

Steven nearly lost it when I told him Faraday’s story.

“What the…!? Why the hell didn’t he ever tell us!?”

Almost certainly because he couldn’t believe what he’d seen.It was a child with no eyes, after all. Thinking back on it now I believe thatwas something evil in the shape of a child. And since I vanished immediatelyafterward, Faraday dared not speak of it. I’ve been too terrified. Much tooterrified.

“That settles it. This thing is definitely after you, Jorge,”

Lisa Lisa said.

“If is speaks Spanish, it must have followed you from theCanary Islands.”

A monster child with no eyes!?

When we finally reached France, the Hamon masters were

waiting for Lisa Lisa, and they led us to their secretunderground lair. It was close to the German border, right in the heart of thefighting, but the Hamon masters were all totally calm about, as if it didn’tconcern them, which really drove home that they were fighting something elseentirely. I handed over my camera, asked them to get the contents developed,and while we were waiting for that, I was introduced to a bald Tibetan Mannamed Ngapoi Ngawang Tom Petty. The moment he laid eyes on me, he called me byname.

“Jorge Joestar.”

“Nice to meet you, Master Tom Petty.”

“You have entered my dreams many times now. To me, it feelsas if we have met many times before. It is an honor to meet you in person.”

An honor?

“I’m just a soldier.”

“You are Jonathan Joestar’s son.”

Oh, he met my Dad? Instantly I became obnoxiously proud.

“I hear he was quite a man.”

Even as a severed head he was oddly impressive. But TomPetty just laughed.

“A man? He was barely a man at all. He was a spoiled boy,weak willed, not very smart, and prone to taking the easy way out. But he had aglimmer of courage. Jorge Joestar, it can be very difficult to summon even amodest amount of courage in the face of overwhelming fear. When fear left therest of us frozen to the spot, trying not to piss ourselves, he had the wildcourage to take one step forward, and say something rude. And you seem to haveinherited that courage.”

“Ehhhhhh….?”

I was genuinely surprised.

“I couldn’t begin to do what my Dad did.”

Fighting one on one with a vampire that had just slaughtereda bunch of cops, throwing himself into a village where nearly the entirepopulation had just been turned into zombies? No fucking way.

“Courage is not a thing that shows up in yourimagination,”

Tom Petty said.

“It’s something you squeeze out of yourself when face toface with genuine fear, terror that leaves every part of you shaking like aleaf.”

I still was absolutely sure I had no such courage, but sincehe was clearly offering encouragement, there was little point in continuing todeny it.

“Uh…then I’ll do my best,”

I said, and attempted a Tibetan style bow, putting my handstogether and lowering my head. Then I went to borrow a phone. I got in touchwith the English Naval Air Service, gave my name, and was forwarded on.

“Jorge Joestar, where the hell are you?”

the man on the other end roared, to my surprise. I’d heardthis voice before, but it wasn’t the officer I usually reported to. I ignoredhis question, and asked,

“Sorry, but who is this?”

“You know who it is!”

I don’t!

“How out of it can the Joestar’s only son be?”

he roared, and at last I placed the loudmouth. I guess I didknow.

“Mister William Cardinal.”

“Sir William Cardinal, Mister Joestar.”

Fuckkk offfffffffffffffffff what was this prick doing here?Sir continued,

“As of today I am now the officer in charge of your unit.Answer my question. Where are you and what are you doing. Why did you abandonedan injured companion and run off on your own?”

Hunh?

“An injured companion? Who?”

“Mister Jim Graham! Don’t try and play dumb!”

Injured?

“You mean, Jim’s alive?”

Even though he’d pulled his tongue and stomach andintestines out and thrown them into the ocean?

“I told you not to play dumb, you coward! Jim Graham told useverything! You encountered three German fighters, surrendered immediately,abandoned Jim when he fell into the sea after shooting down two enemy planes,and left on an enemy ship!? You thought

Jim was dead so you moved directly to spying for the enemy?Ha! You’ve got a lot of nerve!”

What the fuck was he on about? We took out all threeAlbatros fighters, and Jim Graham himself took two of them out!

“Either his memories are confused…or he’s deliberately lying,”

I said. Why would Jim lie? Why would he lie in a way thatput me in a tight spot? It made no sense.

“No, I doubt he’d be lying. He’d lost his mind a bit,attempted suicide, and was quite badly injured. I can totally see the shockscrambling his memories a bit.”

“Suicide? He got scraped up a bit when he crashed into theocean, but otherwise he’s in great shape!”

??? I didn’t know what he meant.

“Pardon me for suggesting this, but it is your first day onthe job; is it possible you have Jim Graham confused with someone else?”

“What!? Are you mocking me!?”

“No, I just…I’ll have to talk to Jim when he gets back tothe ship.”

“No need! Graham’s already here! Our planes found himfloating in the wreckage of the plane you abandoned! I’ll put him on!”

Figuring this was better than having Cardinal shout in myear any longer, I waiting for Graham to come on the line.

“Jorge Joestar.”

It was definitely Graham’s voice.

“Jim? You’re alive?”

“No thanks to you. How could you leave me for dead?”

“….!? What…Jim, what’s going on?”

“Shut up! You’re a disgrace to the RFC! I’ll happily testifyto you being a filthy spy!”

“What….!? Hey! I’d never abandon you if you were alive! Igenuinely thought you were dead…!”

“You thought I was dead, so you felt free to betray us! Yourfriends and your country!”

What the fuck….was this not Graham at all?

“Who are you?”

“The friend you betrayed and left for dead, Jorge Joestar.

The next time I see you I’ll kill you like I would any othergod damn Kraut.”

“Wait…!”

Click! He hung up on me. What was going on?

I was still reeling when Lisa Lisa came over, and showed mea photograph. It showed a child with no eyes, and just was I was starting topat myself on the back for taking such a clear picture, Lisa Lisa said,

“You know this boy.”

Hunh? I froze.

“Who?”

I didn’t know any eyeless children. But that face did lookfamiliar.

“Did you forget? There’s only one Spanish child who reallyhad it in for you.”

I was speechless.

“Your old bully, Antonio Torres,”

Lisa Lisa said.

“Real name Anthony Hightower. Seriously, I never imaginedthat discarded skin lived on as a zombie.”

Lisa Lisa went on.

“This explains a lot. How did the planes get damaged? Thegremlins were hiding on the plane when they took off, or the empty skin caughtthe wind like a kite or a flying squirrel, flying to the planes. Or, mostlylikely, both. It also explains why there were so many reports. Remember, Jorge,his mother abused him so badly his metabolism accelerated until she could peeloff his entire skin every year, from his head to his toes, in one singlepeel.”

All cells in the human body are replaced every seven years;but our skin is replaced once a month – and in Antonio

Torres’ case, three days before June 16th – Maria’scustomary skinning day – his skin cell production would speed up.

“If he’s kept that power as a skin zombie, and is stillgrowing new skin, then every year, on June 16th, skinning day, Antonio Torresis making copies of himself. The Torres case on La Palma happened in 1900.Fifteen years have passed, fourteen skinning days, and Antonio’s copies haveall made copies, doubling each time, so 2 to the 14th power, leaving us with16,384 asshole Antonios. More than enough to terrorize the 800 pilots the NavalAir Service has spread across the channel and the North Sea, wouldn’t you say?”

16,384 of that terrifying shitbag Antonio Torres? I damnnear toppled over frothing at the mouth. Lisa Lisa thought for a moment, thensaid,

“Hmm, but from what you said, the stories about thesegremlins don’t describe them consistently. Some are super short, some hadtotally different features…only thing they had in common was the holes wherethe eyes should be.”

“? ……yeah.”

“That might mean they weren’t actually meeting the realAntonio while out flying, but were making up stories based on the rumors.”

“………? How do you mean?”

“When people are uneasy, they see things that aren’t there,and not just illusions…they make it actually happen. Their fears manifest,and their plane gets damaged just as they imagined.”

“Hunh…? That doesn’t seem possible…”

“But it is. I mean, you and I met the same thing.”

“? What? When?”

“In the underground temple in Rome. You remember that

monster in the dark?”

The gorilla spider?

Pffffffffffffffffffffffffffft……….ffffbbbbbbbbtttt…

“I remember.”

“But do you think that actually existed?”

“Didn’t it?”

“Yes, but I mean was it born naturally into this world? Howwould something like that evolve?”

“……….”

Flustered, I remembered. Even then, I’d thought that LisaLisa’s emotions had summoned the monster. But…

“Nothing like that exists on the surface, and it wasn’tsomething that should exist anywhere in the world. Yet it was there with us,underground.”

“Eh…then you believe our imaginations made that thing?”

“No, not just our imaginations. Like my father said, thatthing’s been in the temple, protecting the treasure all this time. So peoplemust have gone in there after it any number of times. One after another theyadded to it. Imagining what frightening things might be there in the dark withthem, and it matched them, growing into a muscular spider with massive legs.”

“……….!?”

Just remembering that monster was terrifying. It must havebeen real, after all.

“And if human imagination follows similar patterns, thatgorilla spider could exist in any dark place.”

You’re seriously scaring me now. But the words got stuck inmy throat and before I could beg her to stop Lisa Lisa kept thinking out loud.

“Human fears mingle with their imaginations, and in time

those give birth to actual threats…which explains oneother thing. That church on La Palma in 1905, where all those villagers diedtogether. Why? Because villagers who had lived through the Torres case wereafraid something like that would happen again, and when they gathered togethertheir fears fed off each other, leading to them all dying together. When scaredpeople gather together, their amplified fear created the Mothman. But he didn’tactually manifest. He was simply drawn on the walls of that locked room. As thelast job of those who were dying.”

My consciousness blurred as I remembered those horrifyingdrawings, scribbled with the ash and blood of bodies as they burned. LisaLisa’s voice grew faint, sounding far away.

“Humans have only just learned to fly. But now that they’vecreated gremlins, I suppose from now on, any time scared people are flyingthey’ll be attacked by an eyeless Antonio Torres. Ah ha ha. Amazing.”

I fainted.